Soul Boom Workbook: Spiritual Tools for Modern Living

We know how important it is to engage in meaningful conversations and I’ve long admired Rainn Wilson for his ability–not only to engage in meaningful conversations, which you can listen to him do time and time again on the Baha’i Blogcast–but also his desire to help spark that same depth of connection between other people too. In my travels all over the world, I have witnessed how friends have used Rainn’s book, Soul Boom: Why We Need a Spiritual Revolution, in book clubs or in casual chatting in order to ignite purposeful discussions. I am really excited that Rainn and co-author Shabnam Mogharabi have created a companion workbook called Soul Boom: Spiritual Tools for Modern Living filled with prompts and activities of all kinds. It’s incredibly thoughtful and engaging and in this interview, we get to hear all about it from Rainn!

Hi Rainn! Can you please let us a little bit about this book and what it is?

When I published the book, Soul Boom: Why We Need a Spiritual Revolution, I had no idea what the reaction was going to be. I mean, a former sit-com actor who played a Beet-farming paper salesman writing a book about spirituality? How weird is that?! But the book sold moderately well and, more importantly, it seemed to resonate with folks who were looking for a personal soul-centred path forward, both individually and on some kind of collective level as so many institutions seemed to be falling apart at the seams. Also, the related Soul Boom podcast and social media universe was gaining some nice audience and traction as well.

One of the things folks asked about was “HOW?” and “How can I/we put some of these ideas into practice?” With my dear friend, fellow Baha’i and frequent collaborator, author/producer/speaker Shabnam Mogharabi, we spoke about a creative, interactive workbook being a companion piece to the original mothership book. But not a dry, boring one. A portal for an artistic, imaginative and expressive interaction with the biggest questions of the life of the soul. Kind of like the brilliant book The Artist’s Way but for soul-work.

Why did you feel like this was an important book to put together?

Many people are seeking. They are looking for a path forward and don’t know where to start. Perhaps they love their church or mosque or synagogue but want a more personal transformational experience. Or perhaps they have a vague feeling that there is something more to life, some greater level of meaning, and don’t know where to start. Maybe they love making art and expressing their creative sides but are not quite sure how that syncs up with spiritual journeys.

This is a book for the spiritual seekers, the explorers.

How do you hope readers will use the book, and what sort of effect do you hope the workbook will have on its users?

The book starts rather simply, asking what one might already believe about the soul, God and Faith. What their relationship is like to prayer, meditation and religious practice. Then we go deeper and deeper. And deeper. Into nature. Sacred spaces. And then on into some really challenging stuff like death and tests and the nature of suffering. And ultimately we get even more complicated in exploring how can we use spiritual tools to create community, increase service and social justice, and literally start a spiritual revolution at the grassroots.

Of course so much of the inspiration of the concepts and exercises come from our Baha’i background and from beautiful, important ideas Baha’is have been digging into for over a century.

But, and this is important for your readers, at the end of the day we want Soul Boom Workbook to create unity, bring people together and foster community. It would be great for a family to do together. Some of the exercises could be used to as a creative break from studying the Ruhi institute books or a warm up into the sequence of courses. Youth groups would love to work on the book together. And the workbook could be used in community spaces to help foster the uplifting, elevated spiritual conversations we’re being asked to partake in.

How has the workbook been received so far, and do you have examples of how it’s been received and/or being used?

The workbook has only been out for a couple weeks and already we’re starting to get some wonderful submissions to our emails!  People seem to really be responding to the interactivity of both the creative and spiritual in positive ways.

Is there anything else you’d like to share?

The only other thing I’ll add is that I hope this work is embraced by my Baha’i brothers and sisters and incorporated into the neighbourhood service work as part of an ongoing mission to build community and foster spiritual conversation. We wanted the workbook to appeal to young and old, theist and non-theist, and the religious as well as spiritual-but-NOT-religious. We hope this helps ignite hearts and spark some exciting soul journeys!

Thank you so much to you and Shabnam for putting this useful resource together, Rainn!

You can purchase the Soul Boom Workbook from a variety of book retails including, but not limited to, Amazon.

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Naysan Naraqi

Naysan is passionate about using the arts and media to explore the teachings of the Baha’i Faith. Back in 2011, Naysan started up the Baha’i Blog project, channeling his experiences in both media and technology companies to help create a hub for Baha’i-inspired content online.